Many who do amateur genealogical research on Ancestry.com are puzzled to find that some of their ancestors managed to die in a TINY commune called "Y" in France; this is for them.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Did your ancestor REALLY die in "Y, Somme, Picardie, France"?

The answer in a nutshell is almost certainly no.

But first some background on doing genealogical research on Ancestry.com. To save on verbiage, cut to the chase and read about the "Y, Somme, Picardie, France" Ancestry.com glitch, drop down to where the pink text resumes.

I've been researching and compiling my family tree on Ancestry.com for several years now, and this page is for the benefit of others researching theirs on the same site. So far I have thousands of entries, the compilation of which has been quite an experience. I've learned a lot, and I've made a LOT of mistakes. (I'll write about that in another post.)

Sources for the information on Ancestry.com and other genealogy sites are quite varied and range from other people's family trees to actual government records. Most of the info is basically correct, but mistakes can be found almost anywhere, especially if the only source is a Family Tree. But we forge ahead, determined to learn whatever we can about our families.

One bit of weird "data" that kept popping up in my research was a place called "Y", a tiny*village (or commune) with an appropriately tiny name, in the département of "Somme", in the region "Picardie" in northern France. "Y", obviously one of the world's shortest place-names, was supposedly the "Place of Death" for quite a large number of my ancestors, & in most cases I knew it just wasn't possible. [See the map below for the location of "Y". ]

*Historical population of tiny Y, Somme, from Wikipedia

1962

1968

1975

1982

1990

1999

2006

109

116

86

90

82

89

86

From the year 1962 on: population without double counting—residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once.

Well, finally I figured out what I call "The Secret of Y" (or the "Y Anomaly", or the "Y Phenomenon", take your pick). It is now clear why this minute little village kept popping up as the "Place of Death" on Ancestry.comfor so many of my really ancient ancestors....ancestors from all over the place, going back to the 4th Century AD...I knew it couldn't be true and suspected a computer-generated mistake.

Haven't you ever found a totally impossible place of birth or death for an ancestor and questioned it? I sure have!

I've found a Druid priest supposedly dying in the South Pacific, or a 18th Century iron-monger from Scotland managing to die in Alaska., or a king from the 13th Century dying in "Europe, Fayette, Georgia, United States". Shield of "Y, Somme, Picardie, France", a real place.

That's the one that cracked it for me- I knew as soon as I saw "Europe, Fayette, Georgia, United States" that someone (without a clue as to the place of death) must have meant to enter "Europe" and didn't notice the sometimes tricky drop-down list of suggestions, and accidentally accepted the "Georgia, USA" place name.

That led me to crack the code on "Y Somme, Picardie, France". ... read on to see how it appears that masses of people supposedly died in a tiny commune:

1. An amateur genealogist (who isn't particular about form) is entering information about an ancestor; when he comes to the field that asks for the PLACE of DEATH, he realizes that he doesn't know the year-has absolutely no idea.

2. Somehow unable to just leave the PLACE of DEATH field blank, which would be SO MUCH better, the genealogist feels compelled to enter SOMETHING in that field, so he enters "Y", as in "Yes". (Like "Yes, my 28th great grandfather is dead(duh!), I just don't know when he died, but he is definitely dead!")
3. When "Y" is then entered in the PLACE OF DEATH field, "Y, Somme, Picardie, France" pops up first in that sometimes-helpful drop-down list that appears next to the "Place" field.

4. The person entering the info isn't paying enough attention and unknowingly ACCEPTS "Y, Somme, Picardie, France", without noticing that instead of "YES" for place of death, it's now "Y, Somme" etc. And it looks legit, in that it's a real place.

5. WE see it, accept it without question which is a HUGE mistake, and duplicate it, and on and on it goes....this tiny place gets the dubious credit for hosting about a zillion corpses from all over the world.

A little knowledge of history, a little more curiosity, and a lot more patience helps avoid some of this stuff, but mistakes are bound to happen.

Anyway, I've been going through the massive list of names on my tree and deleting "Y, Somme" etc. everywhere I find it. If any of my ancestors actually DID die there, which is totally unlikely, too bad.

Bienvenue sur lepetite communede "Y" en Somme, Picardie,France"!

Tiny "Y", courtesy of Google Earth.

My apologies and best wishes to the handful of residents, alive and dead, who REALLY call tiny Y, Somme, Picardie, France home. I'm sure they've had their share of confused tourists. If I can only think of the right Lotto numbers, I'll be able to go there someday myself and pay my regards in person. Meanwhile, I visit via Google Earth's Street View. Y appears to be so tiny as to be barely there, but charming, and utterly unhaunted :o)

Thank you for sharing this with others. I, too, figured it was a mistake or some kind of default. Now whenever I do see see the reference, I ignore it. Thanks again, for explaining why it is happening.

Amazing, this thing we call the internet! I am chasing my family tree as well, and seeing some of my (I think) family born in North Carolina, and dying in Y, was a bit confusing :) Thanks so much for clearing it up for me as well!

Hilarious! I am one of those with a lot of ancient Scottish ancestors who died in Y! I thought maybe Y was a refuge for those escaping all those wars. Thanks for taking the time to educate us all. Now I know to go back and research all those people to find out where they really died.

Well, it's really true -- if you google, you can find EVERYTHING! Thanks for posting this information. I lecture people constantly to never trust trees posted on Ancestry. Those for my family are mostly very wrong. But this death in France was quite the mystery for one person, and I wanted to learn where and how anyone thought she went to France. Of course, there is never any documentation with these posted trees. But it finally occurred to me to just google the location. And you popped up! Thanks ever so much for such a great service!

thank you! this makes perfect sense. I was wondering why my British ancestor who lived his whole life in Devon could somehow have died in France in 1610. I was looking for the history of the town to see if there had been a battle or something, and found your insightful explanation! bravo!

On many occasions I have found this doltish entry, from a Scot who moved to Mersea, Ontario, CANADA, to an English noble who lived in the 12th century and never left England. It makes a certain convoluted sense that my grandfather might have been buried there as he was in WWI, but he returned from the war and lived out his days in Winnipeg, dying in 1955. So I copped to the fact that this was wrong after I found the third person, but I couldn't figure out why. So thank you!! (FYI, as of May 2016, Y has a population of 84.)

I'm trying to find information on the surname Ponthieux. I know Ponthieux and Ponthieu originated in Picardie but other than that I don't know anything about my last name. Not even why some have an X and some don't. Please if anyone knows any info please help. Thank You.

Thanks for this. I saw that some of my DNA matches had entered this location as a new one for the death of a gg aunt. In fact, after one did it, I noticed it spread like wild fire. I was skeptical and went looking for supporting data.